Miss Coconut, Tallahassee
Age and Occupation: 27, Soon-to-be Lawyer (once I pass the bar!)
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, phD Computer Science
Engagement Date: March 2007
Wedding Date: November 2008
Blogging Since: May 20, 2008
Venue: 1930s Historic Building in Lakeland, FL
About Me: I never thought about weddings until I got engaged. Now, I can't stop thinking about them! Planning the wedding has really opened the floodgates to my DIY side. If there's anything I can do to avoid hiring someone else, I will do it! Mr. Coconut is my financial advisor, he tries to keep me budget-conscious! We've tried to make wedding planning a team effort!
Deep Thoughts from Pina Coladaville
May 27th, 2008 @ 10:29 am by Miss Coconut
(Image from mywedding.com)
On this Memorial Day, I ran a ton of errands and thought a little about the Coconut wedding motto. No, we’re not selling a How-To Guide, don’t worry! But while it’s great to read about pretty things and believe me I do love it too, sometimes it’s good to know what’s behind all of it. You dig?
So, after my dress post I started thinking that I probably should have told you about our budget. In my very first post I mentioned a condensed budget, and then I post about buying a Vera Wang so I can understand if some are confused, but let me take this opportunity to clarify and maybe inspire others to go for the gusto!
Mr. Coconut and I are paying for half of our wedding. Mama and Papa Coconut will be paying for the other half and Mr. Coconut’s parents will be sharing the rehearsal dinner expenses. For the majority of the time, we’ve been graduate students living on student loans save for 3 months where I’ll be working as an attorney. The budget was a hard thing given Mr. Coconut’s debt-kills attitude, but eventually we arrived at a number. That number was $15,000. A lot of money in Mr. Coconut’s opinion. Not a lot in mine. Ultimately, our wedding (including the honeymoon) will end up costing $20,000. So yes, we broke our budget considerably, but we have no regrets!
What were our splurges? Well, for one the dress. I budgeted $1,500, and we ended up spending $1,734.00 (not including alterations). Another is our chair rental. The city has these unfortunate black plastic chairs, so while our venue was a steal, having to rent things like chairs can be a big expense.
Then there were some vendors we didn’t expect at all. We hired a lighting designer that cost $500 including delivery & set up. Our linens were special ordered because our caterer did not have linens to fit long banquet tables.
Where did we save? We saved a considerable amount on our photographer. Well, let me clarify: in comparison to the photographers I obsessed over for months who cost upwards of $3,000, we saved a great amount. Also, our videographer. We hired them for a crazy low cost because it wasn’t a huge priority. Our florist budget is on the lower end, and our stationery budget is quite low because it’s mostly DIY. We also saved on the venue and liquor costs. Our Day-of-Coordinator is extremely affordable because she’s just starting her business. Instead of a string quartet that costs $700, we’ve hired a solo guitarist for $375. Also, my best friend’s parents gave us their timeshare for a week to use for our honeymoon.
I know that it’s common sense to splurge on your priorities and save in other areas, but sometimes that requires some out of the box thinking! For instance, when I mentioned the lighting designer to Mr. Coconut, I about flipped his switch. Once I explained the importance and presented him with a reasonable quote, we were able to come to a compromise. I guess all of this money talk is just to say, if something sounds expensive go ahead and look for quotes before you count it out completely. After all, I was able to find a Vera Wang gown at half the retail price! 
6 Responses to “Deep Thoughts from Pina Coladaville”
our original budget was $5000 bc thats all the cash we thought we could put together bw then and our wedding without going into debt…..then we got a few cash gifts from family members and our budget became $6500….even though our budget is laughable by many other’s standards we have ’splurged’ on our photographer bc that was a very important element for me and the amount that our budget template suggested just wasn’t cutting it. the photogs i found in that price range took pictures that looked worst that looked worse than pictures i’d shot myself.
so this means we won’t be having pro transportation. i will definitely be diy’ing my own makeup. i wont have fancy shoes and unfortunately we wont be able to get “nice” wedding bands this go ’round. but i’m ok with the decisions we’ve made and this works best for us….
Nice work on the bargains, Miss Coconut! Yes, sticker shock was a huge part of our initial planning process… but at the end of the day, you choose the splurges that make you happiest and it’s OK because it’s your wedding! My rationale is that I only plan on doing it once.
Props for talking budget. I disagree a prevailing idea that it’s not appropriate to talk $$. Granted, I don’t want a guest or coworker quizing me on how much we are spending, but IMO it’s a valuable part of sharing planning ideas on weddingbee and similar resources. I’m happy to tell another bride what our vendors cost. While our budgets may be different, we all have one. And it’s important to know costs while planning. For example, I was completely unprepared for catering, rental, and photography costs. But I was pleasantly surprised by how affordable alterations and live musicians were.
We’re keeping the wedding under $10k so that we can splurge on our honeymoon to Greece (~$6k). I saved on my dress ($800 Jenny Lee sample), stationary (DIY ~$100), photography ($1000 for four hours with pro and the rest by my aunt, album TBD), and site (restaurant=free). But we’re splurging on food/drink (easily half our budget), jazz quartet (~$800), and obviously the honeymoon.
Would I do things differently if I had stuck with our original $5000 budget? Or if I had $20,000? Heck yeah! That’s why it’s important.
I’m in your boat as well. However, we’re footing the entire bill ourselves. We also went from a $15k budget to almost twice that. But we’re okay with that. I’m doing a ton of DIY, so I tell myself that even though we’re spending that much, it’ll still look like a million dollars!
How did you find your lighting designer, I have done some searches in the Knoxville area and can’t seem to find much. Can’t wait to hear.
@Kate: We actually asked our vendors for recs b/c at this point we were fresh out of ideas. I ultimately went with our DJ’s suggestion! Hope this helps!
